Evidence of meeting #63 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was changes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
Well, part of it, for sure. I mean, we all pay the bill—
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
We all pay for that. I mean, even public service employees are taxpayers.
Conservative
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
We're supposed to have a government for all Canadians. They too are Canadians.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Well, I'm sure they are. I would hope so, and I would expect so. I think they do a great job in the public sector. My understanding from the economics that I've studied is that for the most part they do pay taxes. These taxes and jobs do create some employment, but when you compare these employees with the people who are actually working in the private sector, the latter pay the majority of the taxes.
In fact, I know we have one of the lowest ratios in the world as far as public sector employees go, or that's my understanding. Am I correct on that?
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
Probably, yes.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Okay. You're not certain. I understand that our public sector is very efficient in what they do compared to other democracies.
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
Yes, and—
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
To get to my question, I went on your website, and it appeared to me that you were suggesting a lot of doom and gloom relating to these layoffs in relation to the job industry. What I'm saying, I guess, is that there are 4,000 job layoffs expected in Alberta, but I can't find people for any of my businesses, and nobody else can either.
So isn't this a good-news story for the rest of the country? We did pay $8.9 billion, I think, in transfers last year out of Alberta—
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
Alberta, Saskatchewan—
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
—most of which was generated by the private sector; in fact, I would suggest all of it.
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
Where you do have an economic boom, like in Saskatchewan right now, the people who are losing their jobs in the public service will probably find jobs in the private sector—
Conservative
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
I was in Edmonton a couple weeks ago. There was some sort of a job fair going on because of all those layoffs in the public service. So that's the good news. But just to transfer that to other provinces...the problem is different.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I understand.
But that's what I'm getting at. I really do believe that it's good news, because I couldn't find employees before and now these people have an opportunity to work in the private sector, which, frankly, pays a lot more than the public sector in Alberta—in fact, I would suggest two or three times' more. I have the highest household income in the country at about $185,000 per household.
It's great news for these people because they have opportunities to pursue other avenues. I hear that a lot from people in the public sector; they would prefer to be in the private sector to earn more money and to have those better earning years. That was my point. Thank you very much for confirming that.
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
Thank you.
Conservative
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I'm just baffled at the last intervention, because the last I heard, most people would want to stay with their families in an established area, spread out across the country as they've been for many years....
But what I'm concerned about from the numbers you gave, Mr. Poirier, of roughly 35,000 when you add up the job losses, with the projections from Stats Canada, is the amount of institutional memory that the federal civil service is going to lose from this. In many cases, there are people who have worked providing services for Canadians for a number of years.
What I've been told is that it's expected that 120 Service Canada centres are going to close down so that only 20 are left. Is that correct, sir?
President, Professional Serving Canadians Coalition, Canadian Association of Professional Employees
I'm not aware of the exact figures for Service Canada.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Okay. Let's say there's a substantial cut expected in that, with a consequent loss in institutional memory.
But I want to take us back, because we were talking before about the errors of the nineties and that kind of thing, and the wall that we hit. We had two reductions in the GST of roughly $14 billion. We had the corporate tax rates of Canada changed, at roughly $16 billion. So roughly $30 billion a year was taken out of the income of the federal government. It's little wonder that they hit a wall; they mismanaged themselves right into that corner. It doesn't have to do with the recession; it has to do with the cuts to income taxes.
Anyway, I'd like to go to Mr. Linton for a second.
Your membership in the service sector is not sitting on big pockets of money in the bank. We know very well that their earnings, because they're unionized, are substantially more than what the average person in the service sector earns, but we have 12 million Canadians that don't have pensions and don't have savings. I would suspect that on the saving side some of your members are in that boat and that they have enough trouble just getting by.
You were talking about the Parliamentary Budget Officer and others who looked at the changes to old age security. Are you aware, sir, that the OECD pension team also has said that it's sustainable and that the issue, from the Parliamentary Budget Officer's point of view, is the fact that when the government talks about the changes....
And their numbers are correct; I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your numbers. It's roughly $39 billion going to roughly $108 billion in costs, so about 2.6% of GDP. The 3.11% of GDP, that's the change. But when they talk about all of this, they don't talk about the projected growth in GDP over a period of time, the period of time until this peaks, and then after that it's going to go down. It's almost like they don't trust their own numbers and their own chances of their economy responding the way they're proclaiming. I'd like your comments on that.
Director, Government and Political Affairs, United Food and Commerical Workers Union
Well, that's what I was trying to get to earlier. As far as the OECD is concerned, yes, I'm aware of that. I would just like to say that in the interests of brevity today I did cut some of my presentation from my speaking notes. Unfortunately, our translator was ill. I will be providing the committee with a much longer version or submission on that.
Yes, as to what you say, I mean, 30 years from now it's going to change. We don't need this. Everyone is saying it's sustainable. There are so many economists out there saying this. As you say, they don't take into account....
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Well, we're wondering if they're trying to make room for more tax breaks. The reality of the change from age 65 to 67 is that they're offloading costs to the provinces for anybody on disability, and they're offloading two years of costs to municipalities in the case of Ontario, if anybody happens to be on welfare. Those two groups of people are already well below the poverty line and are looking for some help in moving at age 65 to OAS and GIS. They're going to have to wait two years longer.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I'd like to make one last comment, because Mr. Oakey compared the two.
When you're in a unionized workplace and you have a health and safety team, then someone cleaning in a hospital who sees a problem can report it to their health and safety committee. The health and safety committee can take it up with management, and that person is sitting there somewhat protected. But if the person is in contracted position and is working for half the money, and two-thirds of it is going off to their employer, and they see the same problem, they'll keep their head down and keep working. That's one of the reasons we're getting superbugs right now, but in your industry it's the same thing when dealing with food services.
Would you agree, Mr. Linton?
